Conventionally, there is known an electric valve used in a refrigeration cycle such as a room air conditioner, a car air conditioner, a freezing/refrigerating device, and a chiller, decreasing a pressure of a high-pressure refrigerant liquid, sending a refrigerant to a low-pressure evaporator, and adjusting a flow rate of the refrigerant (for example, an electric valve controlling a valve opening degree by driving a valve body using a stepping motor) (for example, see the following Patent Document 1).
Among these electric valves, for example, in an electric valve or the like which is controlled by an open loop and cannot detect an absolute position (an actual position) without using a position detection element or the like, a current valve opening degree at the time of starting a control, for example, when power is input or a sleep mode is cancelled cannot be clearly found. For this reason, in some cases, there is a need to perform an operation called an “initializing operation (also referred to as a base point positioning or a home position positioning)” of performing a valve closing operation or/and a valve opening operation at a control pulse range (for example, 500 pulses) or more (for example, 700 pulses or more) and setting that position as a control reference position. Further, since the initializing operation is performed at the control pulse range or more for the additional tightening operation, for example, in an electric valve of which a control range is 0 to 500 pulses and an excitation speed is 80 pps (a speed of 80 pulses for one second), a time equal to or longer than 700÷80=8.75 seconds is needed.